It is all over now Cavs fans. We have had our chance to say all the things that we were feeling since we were trounced upon so many months ago. Despite the whole thing being put in a fishbowl as if Cleveland fans would provide the blood and gore of a grotesque cock fight, we came out looking very good. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. As fans, we did all we could to waste all those thousands (millions?) of dollars spent sending all those media members to Cleveland for a single night. They sent enough people to write a thousand books about this single night and we barely even gave them the hint of a thesis. Take pride in that. Now it is time to move on. Not because others so rudely and crudely told us to, but because we want to and are now ready to. Just don’t blame yourself for the destination.
Sure, in the end, it would be easy to go back and second-guess everything we ever did that helped create an ego-maniac bigger than all the endorsement contracts in sports combined. But it was a no-win proposition. By building it up to these proportions we take the criticism that we “created the monster” and only now get mad when it turns on us. If we hadn’t “created the monster” then we would have been criticized for not caring enough. And the bottom line is that we were always accused of not being deserving of nice things as it was. Behind curtain number one, two and three were the same piles of excrement, just wrapped in slightly different packaging. Which one do you choose?
Plus, we were fighting history. We were pumping ourselves up to try and convince ourselves and the Cavaliers that there were no such things as curses. Again, back in that fishbowl of misery of unfulfilled dreams, is it our fault for lacking self-confidence or is it the national media’s fault for continuing to perpetuate it with montages of titular misery? I think of four-letter words that make George Carlin’s corpse blush when I see that montage, and yet it just rolls off the tongue of the announcer du jour as he casually goes through it like a boring slideshow of vacation photos.
It’s not your fault. All we ever did was love a player more than any in the history of Cleveland sports. All we ever did was wish for him to have every opportunity in the universe to succeed for himself and for us. All we ever did was defend him to a degree that now embarrasses us in the posthumous looks at the whole ordeal. We’ve been called psychos, needy and even been hinted to be racist.
No matter though. We are just fans doing what we are supposed to do. It’s not our fault.